I could have addressed this question in the introduction to just about any team list. The minors are littered with pitching prospects that have lost time to elbow injuries, and plenty of teams have had to “renegotiate” a bonus after a post-draft physical. Cleveland draws this topic because, well (A) there isn’t a ton else to talk about in what’s now a fringe-average system, and (B) Brady Aiken. It’s not the Indians fault they drafted Aiken. Well it is, but you know what I mean, but his entire saga had already become a flashpoint for these kind of conversations long before Cleveland found him atop their 2015 draft board. What came after is a matter for down below. Up here, I want to discuss how the “before” might have changed the balance of power in the draft.

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At least Ramirez is top 5. Going into 2014 they had Jose Altuve as the 6th best talent in the Astros organization. He was a year removed from a 3.9 WARP season. Sure, he was behind a couple guys named Springer and Correa, but also Mark Appel, Mike Foltynewicz, and Jarred Cossart. Every once in a while there is just a misunderestimation.

I'm curious what sort of AAR, if any, is done when wiffing on a prospect evaluation; for good or ill. I get someone like Profar where injures derailed development, but on someone like Appel what happened?

Good question. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I try to go back and review the processes that led me to my belief (or lackthereof) in the prospect in question (this should also occur when we're right to avoid crediting the wrong process, to be sure).

With Appel, it's worth noting that there was a relatively wide range of opinions given how high he was drafted twice. He was oft-derided for lacking fortitude on the mound, which, at the time I considered a bit unfair. I'm not a proponent of assuming I know someone's inner self based on a game or two. I think there were competing points there as well -- it doesn't lack fortitude to turn down $3 million and go back to school, then pitch well enough to go 1-1.

He also flashed superb quality in his arsenal, but we rarely saw them do so in concert. I don't think it's wrong to assume that this is an issue that gets worked out, though it's probably one worth revisiting. Then there was the aspect that he got hit harder than he should for someone with his stuff. This was also a criticism of Gerrit Cole, and that sure looked like a silly one prior to the 2016 season. It was a question of whether you saw the raw quality of the stuff overriding the complete lack of deception in Appel's delivery.

The questions or competing concerns above seemingly all fell on the negative side for Appel. I think the best thing I can do is keep in mind that this happened and use it as a (but crucially not *the*) data point going forward. I won't presume to think I know exactly why some of these things happened for him. At some point there's just too much noise, along with a number of things we don't know without having access to the player and other information.

I don't know that that's a satisfactory answer to your question, but I'm happy to talk about it more if not.

Well, okay but he's never produced even the latter slash line you indicated until 2016. So if you don't buy 2016, you're not buying that either, necessarily. Right now he's projected at about half a win by our system for 2017. That's probably overly conservative, but there's as good a chance that he's the part-time player he's been in years past as he is the all-star quality guy he was last year. We happen to like McKenzie a lot, but if you'd rather flip the two, I don't think people would make a stink about it.

It's less about wanting to flip these two specifically and more about wanting to understand what "Top Talents" means. When a guy is 23 and already has 1200+ major league plate appearances I would think he's a demonstrably a better "talent" than all but the very, very top 18-year old pitchers in the sense that he is far more likely to be a useful major leaguer going forward. If all of this is not about being a more useful major leaguer and is simply about perfect world projections of tools, then I question the utility of the list.

Also, I think I'd still say this if Jose Ramirez didn't hit 312/363/462 last season and instead just hit his major league average. Either way, while 312/363/462 might be near the top of his capabilities, I don't think anyone should have been hugely surprised. As far as I can tell, he has always hit really well, at every level.

Lastly, I'd disagree that there's a good chance he's a part time player. There's a chance, but I think it's much more likely that he's full time with the Indians or elsewhere.

Back to the original question though: What do you think the odds are of McKenzie becoming a star pitcher in the majors?

You're more than welcome to think that he'll be full time, but let's also not twist my words. I said there's as good a chance he's a part-time player as he is the all-star caliber guy he was last year. That's not to say there's not a large area in between, and I don't think either of us would be shocked if he landed there. I think there's a chance last year was mostly real, and if it turns out to be the case I'll happily be wrong. It's not an infrequent thing for me.

I might be the high man on McKenzie. I think he has the potential to lead a rotation, and that there's a lot of projection left for a guy who is already succeeding in relatively dramatic fashion (SSS, to be sure). Is there significant risk? You bet, and it'd be a fair criticism to say that my opinion might not weigh that risk enough. I happen to think there's more risk in Ramirez than you (and I'm guessing a majority of people) think.

Yeah, as Craig said, you can very easily flip these two (and I did, several times, as I was making the list). Ultimately, it came down to the fact that I just didn't see Ramirez continuing to produce at the level he did last year while there's an awful lot to like about McKenzie moving forward—but obviously projecting a 19-year-old pitcher is risky, and there's nothing wrong with valuing Ramirez over that.

Also, Yandy Diaz has done nothing but hit, and in 1400 minor league appearances (the overwhelming majority of which were in the high minors) he's put up 307/403/410, so he must be hitting and drawing walks against some righties, right?

Sorry to pester you, Craig. I do love reading these pieces, and I have for years. I just like to get on prospect evaluators' cases. It's never really made a ton of sense to me, and I like to challenge it from time to time.

I'm not really sure what you're challenging, but okay. You're arguing for a guy in our others area over the 10th guy in a system that falls off dramatically after number 8. There's not a significant gap between the two guys and if you want to prefer Diaz to Plutko, you're more than welcome to. I explained Diaz in the prior comment and Plutko is more than covered in his own writeup.

It seems like an extreme overreaction to list Aiken behind Hillman, among others. We aren’t talking about a big sample of innings post-Tommy John. I would gladly take the inherent risk/up-side over the security of a non-impact player. Am I missing something?

I guess I would just say I don't know if Aiken has that upside anymore. How much more likely is he to add a couple mph than Hillman? Probably more, if only because he used to throw that hard, but I don't think it outweighs the downside risk. I also really like Hillman, and anyway there isn't a huge gap for me between like 4 and 12 in this org.

Your point regarding the variability of the 4th and 12th best prospects in a given system is well received. It’s easy to forget that we are working with ordinal data, and I probably lost sight of that briefly. I kind of mentally arranged an understanding of this system as one with four potential impact talents and then a less clearly defined group of role players and guys that I would need to see more success from before really believing in. For me, Aiken was (and still is) the fourth guy.

I would justify that by simply having patience in the process of recovering from Tommy John. I didn’t expect a 100% recovery after just a few months of pitching this year. And yeah, I think that there is already a narrative for the velocity drop, which to my thinking also means that there is a reasonable chance of regaining some of that. At least it is easier to wrap my head around that than a magical spike in velocity from a lesser-known entity, you know?

I think that there is a non-zero chance that we are talking about the placement of two players who don’t make any meaningful contribution to the club, so I’m not really concerned with the downside risk as much (unless you are referring to the sunk costs associated with Aiken’s bonus, but that seems tangential to the nature of talent rankings). I’m seeing that you gave Hillman a mid rotation OFP, which means that you like him more than I initially realized. I guess I can’t argue the logic in the that, other than to reiterate my position on Aiken.